“Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday.” That mantra, coined by a Ford dealer manager in 1960s America, transcended the international auto markets in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, with millions of dollars being spent by manufacturers for the purpose of proving their vehicles were the best in class.
Almost every major automotive manufacturer has, at some point, engaged in motorsport. Lancia became an icon of Group B Rallying; Mazda won Le Mans with a Rotary engine and Ford and Ferrari went head-to-head in a battle so legendary it became the full-length feature film, Le Mans ’66, with an all-star cast.
Along with proving themselves on the racetrack, manufacturers also used the opportunity of “going racing” to develop and test new technologies under the intense pressure and stress of a race weekend. Some of the more well-known innovations born from racing include all-wheel drive (AWD), semi-automatic gears (i.e., paddle-shift), disc brakes, and more importantly, hybrid powertrains.
Nowadays, though, you don’t see much of that Mustang thoroughbred technology flowing into vehicles. But what you do see more than ever before are innovations in planning, software functionality and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). These software and process innovations, and the benefits they bring to the retail market, are the reasons we still go racing. And they’re having a profound effect on modern-day vehicles.
Planning
In a motor race, if just one member of a pit crew is out of sync it can drastically affect the outcome of a race. Similarly, in a dealership, if technician crews are running behind due to ineffective planning, then costs and delays increase. Simply put, the more vehicles a technician can process in a given time, the more money a business can make. And if multiple technicians can be working on a vehicle simultaneously, or “just in time,” then a vehicle can be returned to a customer in a matter of hours rather than days.
We can, for example, learn from Red Bull Racing’s stellar example of harmonious, just in time maintenance on Max Verstappen’s title-winning F1 Car in Hungary in 2021. After a knock to the wall on the way to the grid, the team had just 15 minutes to replace a pushrod and a track rod (top and bottom suspension arms), leaving only five minutes for the team to refit the tires and ensure the driver could start under normal race conditions rather than from the pit lane. He went on to stand on the podium.
It’s this level of precision and organized behavior that is fast becoming commonplace in dealerships. Through AI technology, systems can automatically recognize the solutions required based on the digital diagnostic reports vehicle manufacturers provide. From here, the system can break the vehicle down into a series of tasks, such as suspension, body work, or battery, and this enables a technician, including specialists such as high-voltage electricians (in the case of electric vehicles), to be assigned to a task when it needs doing. This means that while the vehicle is on a lift, for example, both suspension and brake teams can work on the project at the same time, and the technicians or battery specialists can work on another task while the engine/battery bay is out of reach. When the brake and suspension teams are done, the system will automatically assign the engine or battery teams to get to work.
In addition to all this planning, and similar to the needs of a high-precision F1 team, people are kept informed of the progress. Customer promise times will be updated when a task is completed, as would a lead engineer of the pit wall of a race team.
Software innovation
Along with planning innovations, motorsport led the way in how software has developed within modern road vehicles. Now they are so dependent on software they can be updated remotely or “over the air” without needing to visit a dealership. These updates have made more headway in recent years in the EV market with the likes of Tesla and Rivian.
Remote updates not only change the “brains” of the vehicle, but more excitingly, they can change the physical characteristics of how it drives. This means customers feel as if their vehicle is constantly getting better.
While software updates like these are relatively new to the retail market and are currently perceived as an EV innovation, they’re not actually new at all. Motorsport teams have been utilizing over-the-air updates for years, and unlike EVs, their cars are traveling at 200+ mph, not parked at a charging station.
It was motorsport’s development of this technology and its eventual refinement that allowed for engine modes to be switched at 200 mph. It is developments like this that are slowly being handed down to dealerships and to OEMs that are making the dealer maintenance network more efficient and effective. By digitizing the workshop floor, technicians can more accurately record the work they’ve done while also utilizing connected systems to send data over the air to manufacturers, reporting common faults so they can be fixed quickly and without the need for recalls.
Systems like Getac’s AI-based network are helping dealerships create a centralized hub for technicians to plan, process and release vehicles in record time. And by integrating with OEM networks or other dealership software, they can keep customers better informed. This helps improve customer retention rates and ensure that work is consistently done to the highest possible standard in the fastest possible time.
